Outlook and Hotmail - any advice please

[Victor Delta]

My daughter is having problems getting Outlook XP/2002 (on a Vista PC) to
access her Hotmail account correctly. We have searched the web for advice
and followed the guidance given.

Some articles suggest Hotmail (basic account) will not work with Outlook at
all.

However, do we need to use the 'Outlook Connector' or even something like
FreePops?

Any advice please?

TIA

V

 

[Kathleen Orland]

You need the Outlook Connector to access Hotmail through Outlook.

 

[Roady [MVP]]

You can use POP3 when using Outlook 2002/XP or previous to access your Live
Hotmail account.
Note that Outlook 2002/XP has compatibility issues with Windows Vista such
as not being able to remember the passwords for email accounts.

For POP3 settings and alternatives see;
http://www.howto-outlook.com/news/hotmailaccessforbidden.htm

 

[Victor Delta]

But will it work with Outlook XP/2002? All the articles I've seen only
mention Outlook 2003 and 2007?

V

 

[Victor Delta]

Many thanks.

V

You can use POP3 when using Outlook 2002/XP or previous to access your
Live Hotmail account.
Note that Outlook 2002/XP has compatibility issues with Windows Vista such
as not being able to remember the passwords for email accounts.

For POP3 settings and alternatives see;
http://www.howto-outlook.com/news/hotmailaccessforbidden.htm

 

[VanguardLH]

But will it work with Outlook XP/2002? All the articles I've seen only
mention Outlook 2003 and 2007?

The Outlook Connector will not work with Outlook for versions before 2003.

 

[VanguardLH]

My daughter is having problems getting Outlook XP/2002 (on a Vista PC) to
access her Hotmail account correctly. We have searched the web for advice
and followed the guidance given.

Some articles suggest Hotmail (basic account) will not work with Outlook at
all.

However, do we need to use the 'Outlook Connector' or even something like
FreePops?

Either your daughter hasn't accessed her Hotmail account since before last
September using Outlook or she has not use Outlook to access her Hotmail
account.

Cutoff for DAV access to Hotmail ended on September 1, 2009. Microsoft
switched to Deltasync as their HTTP communications protocol to their webmail
service. E-mail clients that support only DAV for HTTP access will no
longer be able to use it to access Hotmail. Your choices after the cutoff
are:

- Use POP to access your Hotmail account.
- Use a Deltasync-enable client to see all the folders in your webmail
account.
- Use the webmail interface that has always been there even before
Microsoft bought Hotmail.

Also see http://www.howto-outlook.com/news/hotmailaccessforbidden.htm

POP has no concept of folders. It only understands a mailbox where ALL your
e-mails reside. Because POP doesn't use folders, there are no commands
within the Post Office Protocol to navigate or select folders. It only has
access to your mailbox. The mailbox that POP can access is the Inbox folder
you see when using the webmail client to your account.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_office_protocol
http://communication.howstuffworks.com/email.htm
http://email.about.com/cs/standards/a/pop_basics.htm
http://email.about.com/cs/standards/a/how_pop_works.htm

Hotmail has never had and still doesn't have IMAP access. IMAP lets you
access other folders in your e-mail account (or, more accurately, those
folders to which you have subscribed). Microsoft has hinted that they may
make IMAP access possible in the future but no Hotmail user is going to pend
using their account until if and whenever IMAP access shows up.

The only way to have local access to the non-Inbox folders in your Hotmail
account is to use Deltasync (DAV support dies on Sept 1). This protocol
makes available all your folders that you defined using either the
Deltasync-enabled e-mail client (which then replicates that local folder on
the server) or syncs to those folders you created using the webmail client.
If you want IMAP-like access to your Hotmail account, you'll need to use
either the webmail client or a local e-mail client that supports Deltasync,
which are:

- Windows Live Mail (replaces Outlook Express and Vista's Windows Mail).
- Outlook 2003/2007 *plus* the Outlook Connector add-on. The add-on
adds Deltasync support since no version of Outlook natively supports
Deltasync. The add-on doesn't work with prior versions of Outlook.
- Use a screen-scraper proxy or e-mail client that tries to navigate the
web pages for the webmail client to Hotmail.

Outlook Express NEVER had support for Deltasync. It is a dead product:
functional development ceased back in 2002, a patch for SP-2 in Windows XP
allowed moving the default location of signature and quoted content, and
security patches ended in 2006 when the development team got disbanded. It
does have DAV support but Microsoft is discontinuing DAV access to their
mail hosts on Sept 1, 2009, and moving to Deltasync. There will be no
changes to OE to add Deltasync support to it. That means you can use OE for
POP access to your Hotmail account but not for Deltasync access (that would
give you access to the other webmail folders).

There are some screen scraper proxies or clients that will try to navigate
the web pages that makeup the webmail interface for Hotmail. That is, they
are coded to walk through the Hotmail web site. They act like a local
POP-to-HTTP proxy. You configure a POP account in your e-mail client that
connects to this protocol converter proxy that then uses HTTP to walk
through the Hotmail web site. They aren't reliable. FreePOPs, YahooPOPs
(for use with Yahoo Mail only), and Thunderbird with its Webmail proxy are
such types of screen-scraper clients. If the webmail interface changes then
these screen-scraper clients will fail. You cannot get your e-mails using
them until their author gets around to making their web-walking code match
the changes to the web site. Since they provide POP access through their
converter proxy, you only get access to your mailbox (which is the Inbox
folder shown in the webmail client). Since you use POP to connect to the
protocol converter proxy, you won't get IMAP or Deltasync access to the
other folders available in the webmail client. Since Hotmail, even for free
accounts, has POP access, there is no point in using a screen scraper to
access Hotmail.

 

[Victor Delta]

Either your daughter hasn't accessed her Hotmail account since before last
September using Outlook or she has not use Outlook to access her Hotmail
account.

Cutoff for DAV access to Hotmail ended on September 1, 2009. Microsoft
switched to Deltasync as their HTTP communications protocol to their
webmail
service. E-mail clients that support only DAV for HTTP access will no
longer be able to use it to access Hotmail. Your choices after the cutoff
are:

- Use POP to access your Hotmail account.
- Use a Deltasync-enable client to see all the folders in your webmail
account.
- Use the webmail interface that has always been there even before
Microsoft bought Hotmail.

Also see http://www.howto-outlook.com/news/hotmailaccessforbidden.htm

POP has no concept of folders. It only understands a mailbox where ALL
your
e-mails reside. Because POP doesn't use folders, there are no commands
within the Post Office Protocol to navigate or select folders. It only
has
access to your mailbox. The mailbox that POP can access is the Inbox
folder
you see when using the webmail client to your account.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_office_protocol
http://communication.howstuffworks.com/email.htm
http://email.about.com/cs/standards/a/pop_basics.htm
http://email.about.com/cs/standards/a/how_pop_works.htm

Hotmail has never had and still doesn't have IMAP access. IMAP lets you
access other folders in your e-mail account (or, more accurately, those
folders to which you have subscribed). Microsoft has hinted that they may
make IMAP access possible in the future but no Hotmail user is going to
pend
using their account until if and whenever IMAP access shows up.

The only way to have local access to the non-Inbox folders in your Hotmail
account is to use Deltasync (DAV support dies on Sept 1). This protocol
makes available all your folders that you defined using either the
Deltasync-enabled e-mail client (which then replicates that local folder
on
the server) or syncs to those folders you created using the webmail
client.
If you want IMAP-like access to your Hotmail account, you'll need to use
either the webmail client or a local e-mail client that supports
Deltasync,
which are:

- Windows Live Mail (replaces Outlook Express and Vista's Windows Mail).
- Outlook 2003/2007 *plus* the Outlook Connector add-on. The add-on
adds Deltasync support since no version of Outlook natively supports
Deltasync. The add-on doesn't work with prior versions of Outlook.
- Use a screen-scraper proxy or e-mail client that tries to navigate the
web pages for the webmail client to Hotmail.

Outlook Express NEVER had support for Deltasync. It is a dead product:
functional development ceased back in 2002, a patch for SP-2 in Windows XP
allowed moving the default location of signature and quoted content, and
security patches ended in 2006 when the development team got disbanded.
It
does have DAV support but Microsoft is discontinuing DAV access to their
mail hosts on Sept 1, 2009, and moving to Deltasync. There will be no
changes to OE to add Deltasync support to it. That means you can use OE
for
POP access to your Hotmail account but not for Deltasync access (that
would
give you access to the other webmail folders).

There are some screen scraper proxies or clients that will try to navigate
the web pages that makeup the webmail interface for Hotmail. That is,
they
are coded to walk through the Hotmail web site. They act like a local
POP-to-HTTP proxy. You configure a POP account in your e-mail client that
connects to this protocol converter proxy that then uses HTTP to walk
through the Hotmail web site. They aren't reliable. FreePOPs, YahooPOPs
(for use with Yahoo Mail only), and Thunderbird with its Webmail proxy are
such types of screen-scraper clients. If the webmail interface changes
then
these screen-scraper clients will fail. You cannot get your e-mails using
them until their author gets around to making their web-walking code match
the changes to the web site. Since they provide POP access through their
converter proxy, you only get access to your mailbox (which is the Inbox
folder shown in the webmail client). Since you use POP to connect to the
protocol converter proxy, you won't get IMAP or Deltasync access to the
other folders available in the webmail client. Since Hotmail, even for
free
accounts, has POP access, there is no point in using a screen scraper to
access Hotmail.

VanguardLH

Many thanks for your most helpful and comprehensive post. In view of what
you say, I think we'll give Windows Live Mail a go.

We might also try setting up a Gmail account, pulling the Hotmail messages
into it using the POP facility, and then synchronise the Gmail account with
Outlook using IMAP. Outlook 2002 appears to have the facility for IMAP
accounts although Gmail help screens only refer to the 2003 and 2007
versions as having IMAP capability. Strange?

V

 

[VanguardLH]

We might also try setting up a Gmail account, pulling the Hotmail messages
into it using the POP facility, and then synchronise the Gmail account with
Outlook using IMAP. Outlook 2002 appears to have the facility for IMAP
accounts although Gmail help screens only refer to the 2003 and 2007
versions as having IMAP capability. Strange?

A couple points:

- Using POP in your Gmail account to yank e-mails from your Hotmail account
will only retrieve e-mails in the Inbox folder in your Hotmail account.
Remember that POP doesn't understand folders, just a mailbox (which is the
Inbox folder in the webmail interface). You won't get at the other
Hotmail folders, like Junk or Trash, using POP.
o However, unlike Gmail where you cannot turn off its anti-spam
filtering, you can reduce the aggressiveness of Hotmail's anti-spam
spam. It has 3 settings: low, normal, and exclusive. Unless you are
already using exclusive mode in your Hotmail account, you'll want to
reduce its spam filtering to low (and let Gmail handle the spam
filtering).
o There may still be some new e-mails to your Hotmail account that get
moved into its Junk/Spam folder and you won't be retrieving them using
Gmail's POP access.
- Although you can use IMAP to access your Gmail account (so you can see the
other subscribed folders, like Junk and Trash), all versions of Outlook
are known to have some flakiness in handling the IMAP access method.
Unless you have a need to see the Junk and other non-Inbox folders in your
Gmail account (which you can do using the webmail interface if you are
looking for an expected e-mail that doesn't show up in the Inbox), POP
would be a more reliable access method to your Gmail account.

 

[Victor Delta]

A couple points:

- Using POP in your Gmail account to yank e-mails from your Hotmail
account
will only retrieve e-mails in the Inbox folder in your Hotmail account.
Remember that POP doesn't understand folders, just a mailbox (which is
the
Inbox folder in the webmail interface). You won't get at the other
Hotmail folders, like Junk or Trash, using POP.
o However, unlike Gmail where you cannot turn off its anti-spam
filtering, you can reduce the aggressiveness of Hotmail's anti-spam
spam. It has 3 settings: low, normal, and exclusive. Unless you are
already using exclusive mode in your Hotmail account, you'll want to
reduce its spam filtering to low (and let Gmail handle the spam
filtering).
o There may still be some new e-mails to your Hotmail account that get
moved into its Junk/Spam folder and you won't be retrieving them
using
Gmail's POP access.
- Although you can use IMAP to access your Gmail account (so you can see
the
other subscribed folders, like Junk and Trash), all versions of Outlook
are known to have some flakiness in handling the IMAP access method.
Unless you have a need to see the Junk and other non-Inbox folders in
your
Gmail account (which you can do using the webmail interface if you are
looking for an expected e-mail that doesn't show up in the Inbox), POP
would be a more reliable access method to your Gmail account.

Many thanks again,

V